Description: Online ESL tutor, Nigel, shares his experience with handling challenging online students.
From parents who conduct business in the background to siblings running around the room, when it comes to dealing with challenging students, you need to be well prepared.
Being an online ESL teacher can be difficult at times, but also extremely rewarding.
By planning ahead, being flexible, and having a good sense of humour, you can handle these so-called challenging students and develop stronger
classroom management skills!
What is a Challenging Student?
A student may be bored, a young learner may have a short attention span, teens could be trying to impress their peers, or an adult student may lack confidence in his English speaking ability.
Remember, just because a student is ‘acting up doesn’t mean they are a ‘bad’ student.
Whether they just need a bit more attention or a channel to direct their energy, these students can be manageable.
Below are some common types of challenging students and how to handle them.
The Travelling Learner
This student attempts to take the class with them, whether it’s to the shopping centre, a restaurant, or in the car.
Although the digital age has allowed for mobile devices to be accessed on the go, for the online ESL learner this can lead to many distractions, excess background noise and an unsatisfactory internet connection.
Refer to your company/school’s policy. Most companies have policies that require a quiet learning environment and a stable Internet connection.
Meanwhile, make every effort to teach the class as normal. Remember that while it may appear that your student isn’t prioritizing your lesson, it may not be the case.
They may enjoy learning English so much they do not want to miss their lesson, even when otherwise engaged. So try to be patient with these students.
The Technologically Distracted Student
This student is either a bit too enthusiastic with technology (eg: adding funny images around themselves in their camera display or enthusiastically ‘drawing’ with virtual whiteboard pens) or else has a difficult time understanding how technology works.
If you have more than one student, and there’s a student using technology inappropriately and they won’t stop when you ask them to, you can ‘take advantage’ of your online class platform’s features.
Most platforms give teachers the ability to mute students’ microphones, close cameras and disable annotate features.
Most often, when students don’t get the attention they are seeking from the rest of the class (e.g, when students aren’t laughing at their funny camera joke), they’ll simply stop the behaviour and you can then turn their camera back on, unmute them, etc.
If a student is struggling with technology, you could encourage them to come to class earlier to work through any technical issues they may be having.
You can also try creating classroom program tutorials using a screencast software and sending them to your students so they can become familiar with how to use technology outside of class time.
Final Note
Dealing with challenging students when teaching English online just goes with the territory.
But with the right strategies in place and a good attitude, these students can sometimes turn out to be your brightest and most rewarding pupils to teach. Happy teaching!
By tutor Nigel. Contact Us